cubanmiamiboy

Lately my level of tolerance is going sub-zero, to be honest. I wish I could just rent the entire theater and have the performance just for myself seated in the royal box... At the very end, we're just talking about lack of elemental manners. Whatever wasn't there while growing up will have very few chances to become part of oneself. Key word: upbringing...and THAT you can easily detect my friend... Aren't kids afraid of belt beatings any longer...? That used to work, and only getting "the look" from one's parents would get you back in control.... Oh yes, I forgot...now they're told in school to call 911 and report the parents...

We will have to agree to disagree on that. Theater performance, in my eyes, doesn't start from the moment the courtain goes up, but right since you cross the entrance doors. The people beautifully dressed up, the nice conversacions around, the fine manners, the uniformed ushers, EVERYTHING becomes part of the performance. If you start taking all this elements out one by one-(which in many ocassions is just the case)-whatever happens onstage can ve seriously damaged-(the fine manners issue has an excruciating importance here, BTW). Even if one wants to concentrate and focus on what's happening up there, you're completely exposed to a ruined evening.

I watched it after work up until Carabosse's appearance and then turned it off-(had to go to sleep), but I should say I wasn't impressed at all. I ended up missing Petipa's steps, and then the music was being aggressively butchered off by huge chunks, so I couldn't really cope with that...

Last thursday during the Nutcracker I had a nightmare of a night. Children screeming, parents eating out of cellophane bags like maniacs, flashes going on during the entire performance, late comers pouring in at all times, cell phones texting mode in full blast. I had a couple seated in front of me who refused to stop the compulsive texting, even after several attempts by me and the usher, whom I called in. Finally, out of major frustration, I took my programme and snapped it loudly, full force on the tubing behind their heads. BAM!!! They jumped in their seats, but it worked. To each, his/her own. Still, it is getting more and more exhausting to deal with all that...

What a loss. I never registered on the site, but I very much browsed in regular basis its amazing amount of info on ballet. Also, via a Balletco poster was the way I dscovered BalletAlert, so I deeply appreciated the link. Bruce will be highly missed certainly.

Ray, thanks for posting this, I haven't seen it in so long! I'm not a big Kistler fan, but to my eyes this is so much more enjoyable than what we saw on Wed. Kistler luxuriated in the steps, her dancing had amplitude, warmth and allure. We have only Martins to blame for the casting but seriously - NYCB has NUMEROUS ballerinas who regularly grace the stage in NY as the Sugar Plum Fairy and deliver luminous performances on a regular basis. Kowroski, Mearns and Peck are my favorites but Somogyi and Ringer are also beautiful. Bouder and Reichlin have assumed the role more recently and IMO, are not in the same league but still give lovely performances that are much more expressive & nuanced than Fairchild's. Too bad the world couldn't have seen one of them. Bart - regarding the tempo - I've always felt that Otranto went for pretty moderate tempos compared to other NYCB conductors. They have always favored brisk tempos, especially their principal conductors, Karoui and Andrea Quinn before him. The slowing down of tempi s one of my biggest disappointments of today's ballet. I saw a second run of Balanchine's Nutcracker tonight and there's definitely a difference between today's production and the recording with Kirstler regarding pace. I wish that instead of the obsession with placement and port de bras today's ballerinas, conductors and stagers would emphasize more in attack and brio, something you see way more in old videos. To do so with some pieces like some PDD's can-can sounding codas is a no-no, but to do it with, let's say, the Waltz of the Flowers is definitely a crime. Please, don't give us perfection-(there's no such thing)...-bring back fast, energetic ballet...!

I loved the sight of the girls arranging their veils. There was something very iconic on it. It made me remember a pic of Kssesinskaya as Nikiya I've seen somewhere with some corps girls in the background. The very fact of seeing all this modern young women repeating once again what those others did so many years ago amazed me, as it does every time I see am imperial ballet chunk being passed on, repeated, rehearsed, preserved, taking care of with love and respect. It is a relieve to see that those veils and those arabesques and tendus are well kept. Thanks, Alexandra, for the videos. I really wsh them well.

Ah...that damn cancer...

It would be more like a daytime soap opera, and If so I could be competing lenght wise with "All my children", Jayne...!

To me dressing up for the transmission is a confusion of the occasion similar to applauding as you would at a live performance. One is one, the other is the other. (I do think it would be appropriate to dress if it was a premiere or a special showing.) The occasion is the performance, and if the performance is special to people, they dress up. (Or if, like me, they prefer to dress down even on special occasions, they may dress up out of consideration for other members of the audience). I'm a rabid advocate of ENFORCED dress codes for opera and ballet. I surely miss the sunny days of seeing tourists dropping jaws when told they were not allowed into the theater in cargo shorts and/or flip flops. I guess they couldn't understand the measure if the audience around them was basically made of starved nationals-(who would scrapped long sleeves and dressy pants out of nowhere)- in a crumbling grand dame of a theater.

Since the topic has been raised, I note that given the dreadful toll that of hospitalization, disability, and death commanded by diseases such as the measles in the past, we should be most grateful for vaccines and the benefits they provide for all - not least those who go unvaccinated as "free riders," relying on the fact that others will get vaccinations and so spare them from the chance of falling ill. In California we recently had a measles outbreak attributed in part to the declining vaccination rate. Fortunately most parents are still getting their children vaccinated. There is an amazingly high porcentage of the population still resistant to the vaccination process. Even for the simple adult pneumococcal one I'd say I would get probably one agreenment to get it out of 100 offerings to new admissions on the floor during high risk season.

...gotta try that, bart..!

Just bumping this thread dedicated to the late Mark's Tanny and Benvolio. The montage that he posted in post # 1 is just beautiful. RIP Mr. Goldweber.

The interview was just tasteless. Whenever Hallberg would try to get into some thoughtful comment Colbert then would start again with all that cheap comedy act. Every time I see this phenomenon-(the fact that the laughable dose seems to be mandatory for any act to be successful)-I remember a friend, a teacher of 40 plus years , who always tells me that she can't take the new school guidelines for which professors are ordered to make classes "fun". As she says, school was never meant to be fun, but to learn, many times the hard way. I think it would have been more interesting would Colbert have allowed a little more seriousness into the interview, which was short to start with, let along all the time wasted with the clown thing. And then , just as photocopying Letterman in his interview with Part, there is the necessary mocking gestures of ballet jumps and poses. The "humping" remark was plainly vulgar. Finally, when one thinks some bit of a ballet performance will be broadcast so people who has never seen it can have the opportunity to enjoy some seconds of such beautiful art, the omnipresent clownish act needs to make its necessary inclusion. How sad. Now understand why Alonso always refused to make such pseudo-appearances on TV, unless there were "real" ones... Or maybe it is just me, who was never fond of clowns, but as the saying states, to each his/her own...

Edited: double post.

RIP Glebb. How sad that in many cases we get to know so little about the real people behind the screennames until they're gone. This is the second time I experience something like this here.

Ha..! Isn't Jeanette just wonderful...? I'm not afraid to guess that she's one of the country top five best ballerinas right now... Liturgy...what a bore.

This is terrible! These tweet seats need to be in a separate room and the people can watch the show from a movie screen. I don't understand why people attend a performance and don't want to actually watch it. You can't watch it while typing! I also wonder why people at the HD transmissions of opera and ballet applaud. I believe in applauding performers but not a movie screen. Applause is for the performers, so when they can't hear it, what is the point? It is no big deal, b/c it is always at the end and not disruptive, but I just wonder what is going on in these people's minds. The fact of being carried away by the beauty of performance, live or not...? Then you shoud see me applauding at home by myself with my two kitties as witnesses..! ;-)

Theme and Variations keeps being danced way less than at its fullest capacity, which this video jut confirmed. I think this is a ballet just waiting to be rediscovered and fully developed in the XXI Century by Osiipova and Vasiliev.

Hallberg arriving...O/V leaving...that's the natural course of nature...a perpetual movement.

The way I see this film is as another likely to be forgotten shot. There was a time -(back when I was younger in college)-when I would get into endless discussions praising all this stuff and trying to be part of the "film ntelligentsia"-(even secretely hating it, as I'm sure is still the case with this type of films, or modern dance, or visual arts for the matters, as the last Art Basel I went confirmed). Anyway...I grew up and right now I really don't have the energy, nor the desire or the audience to pretend any longer. It was a long, boring-(and probably ultra expensive)-shot. But to each, his/her own... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KER_IcHQYcA So anyway...let's get back to Mamie..!!

The film went on and on and on...forever-(2H, 10 m)-, 90% of the dialogues almost as in slow movement, in whispering mode. Kirsten Dunst has never convinced me as an actrees.

It is indeed, atm711. Alonso, in her fierce effort not to change a bit of what she imported, even left the truncated passage of music in the Adagio, which omits some bars right before the back bend lifts. I always wondered the reasons of the omission until I was told that what we were hearing was the arrangement done for the BRdMC staging. The truncated fragment starts at 2:44 in this clip.

What a great pic, rg..! (Thanks, as usual, for those wonderful treats of yours..). I see the Spanish Dance on the left-(from audience perspective)-, the Arabian on the right, two marzipans on each side of the stage and I would say the two couples on each side of the Sugar Plum/Coqueluche are the Chinese...? Then, the rest four couples in the back are supposed to be the Russian Dance, right...? Oh, how interesting, so the Vic-Wells production had THREE acts instead of two..? How come...? Did Sergueev devoted a whole act to the Snow Scene...? If so, then more music and choreography must have been added to it...do you know if England had also its share of a new Snow Queen PDD...?

Edited: Double post